Date: 1pm Saturday 21st March to 1am Sunday 22nd March 2021
Strava says: 50.55 miles
Elevation: 2,409 ft / 734 m
Weather: dry and mild
Start: my home
Route type: 4.1 mile laps
Conditions: dry pavement
Describe the route in three words: surprisingly enjoyable circles
How it came about
Often one of the first things I do in the morning is turn on my phone to check my work emails and my Facebook messenger to see what might lie in store for me that day, a lot of the work I get is through Facebook pages and clients first port of call is to send me a direct message there. I got slightly distracted however on the morning of Tuesday 16th March by Facebook telling me I might be interested in a local event.
All I saw was the two words “Linkenholt Backyard” - and what commenced was an immense flurry of activity. First of all was a screen grab messaged to Kevin Munt, long time ultra runner and one of my running coaches at club. The message simple said: “Oh. My. God.” At that very moment, he was sharing the event in Aid Station, the Facebook group full of ultra fans and listeners of his excellent podcast series. In the moments it took for him to reply to me with: “Just posted it on Aid Station. You and I are both mental!” I’d already done a Google map search to see where Linkenholt actually was (about an hour from me!).
My excitement levels shot through the roof! We then proceeded with a torrent of back and forth:
Kev: Just posted it on Aid Station. You and I are both mental!
Me: I think that must have popped up on our FB feeds at the same time!
Kev: Yep that’s because we are Ultra mad
Me: And my phone just autocorrected the word ‘same’ to DBR
Me: I’m crying with laughter!
Kev: What do you reckon? Not sure I can do it as it would take too much out of me before DBR. I need a cooling off period!
Me: I reckon I need crew.
Kev: You doing it?
This was INSANE! I am a massive Barkley marathons fan and even though I have a lot to say on the entry process I can’t say a word, if I reveal too much, I will be banned for life. But common knowledge is that the winner of Big Dog Backyard event held in Tennessee each year gets a golden ticket into the Barkley. Now, I did my typical Lizzie thing of not reading any of the details and just assumed that whoever won the Linkenholt Backyard would gain access to Barkley, luckily Kev pointed out this was not the case. The winner might be invited to go to Big Dog Backyard and they would get £250 travel expenses. I then plummeted back down to earth not with this knowledge, but with the knowledge that it didn’t matter how bad I wanted to do this race, who would crew me? I’m so new to ultra running I don’t know that many fellow ultra runners and the ones I do know I could hardly ask them to sacrifice an entire weekend just for me to do some crazy dream. Sure I could ask friends and family, but none of whom know me as a runner, they would not know the signs to look out for when I’m in need of something and too tired to realise it myself.
And then this happened…..
Kev: If you are serious about it and you are not going to quit until at least 30 hours, I will lead a crew for you. Rounding up the Aid Station crew if possible.
Oh. My. God. Indeed. This has now just gone from a pipe dream to a reality. Kev would be super, he knows ultra inside out. He’s head coach at running club and we’ve run numerous ultras together. If anyone is going to lead me beyond 30 hours, he’s my man.
The seed was now sown. I kept switching from, “Oh my word I can actually do this!”, to, “What’s wrong with me? I’m nuts!” It didn’t help that when I spoke to my husband about it he was totally on board with the idea and thought I should give it a go. In fact, it was his suggestion I do a mini backyard to give myself a little taster of what it could be like.
So that’s why a few days later, I found myself creating the aid station of all aid stations in my kitchen! Due to work and the chicken workshops I was running over Zoom to raise money for the British Hen Welfare Trust, I wasn’t able to do a route recce but I had a pretty good idea of a route that I felt would be the 4.1 miles required to do a Backyard. The plan was to start at 1pm and run for 12 hours. On the hour every hour, a 4.167 mile loop should commence. I was going to be strict and time myself out if I missed it. I had no idea what running laps on a pavement would do to me and I wasn’t sure if the rests in-between loops would help or hinder. I was vey keen to find out! I managed to rope in a running buddy for nearly every loop. Kev signed up to the night shift on the condition he could bring his microphone with him for the Aid Station podcast, you can listen to it here.
What was in my aid station?
I really went to town on the food and definitely over catered but it was great having the variety and finding out what it was I really wanted as I got further into the challenge.
Fruit: Watermelon, grapes, banana
Pasta: pesto pasta salad and the best macaroni cheese I’ve ever made
Pizza
Super Noodles
Red pepper humous, guacamole, red Leicester and salad wraps
Quorn cocktail sausages
Sweeties: Skittles Chewies and Starburst Minis
Crisps: Plain Hula Hoops and cheese and onion Walkers
Flapjacks
Malt loaf
Cereal bars
Gin Gins & crystallised ginger
Mints
As well as enough food to cater for a street party, I laid out loads of spare running clothes to cater for every weather, along with a chair, a blanket, a mat and my trusted wooden pole (I use it instead of a roller).
Route description:
The 4.1 mile route ran anticlockwise from my house and was around 205 ft elevation, of the hills there were 3 significant uphills. The road just before arriving back at my house was an enjoyable downhill.
Laps:
Run lap: On the run lap I would always walk hill number 2 and hill number 3. As it got later into the challenge I also walked hill number 1 - therefore reducing my rest period by around 3 minutes.
Walking lap: I walked the majority of the lap but would always run the final stretch down to my house. I think if I did not run that section, I would not have had any rest whatsoever.
1pm - 1.46pm (14 minute rest) running and walking with Ingrid
2pm - 2.52pm (8 minute rest) solo walk
3pm - 3.51pm (9 minute rest) solo walk
4pm - 4:36pm (24 minute rest) run with Lucie
5pm - 5:36pm (24 minute rest) run with Paul
6pm - 6:40pm (20 minute rest) run with Paul
7pm - 7:53pm (7 minute rest) solo walk
8pm - 8.43pm (17 minute rest) run with Hazel
9pm - 9:54pm (6 minute rest) walk with Lucie
10pm - 10:39pm (21 minute rest) run with Kev
11pm - 11:54pm (6 minute rest) walk with Kev
12pm - 12:54pm (6 minute rest) run with Kev we rounded up so I had done a total of 50 miles.
Summary:
This was such a great experience and not as hard as I thought it would be. Of course, I know I can run 40 miles in 7 hours, so this was a leisurely 50 miles in 12 hours with tons of walking and resting. I realised that on a true Backyard, the real race won’t begin until after 24 hours have passed.
I did feel more fatigued after this than an ordinary ultra, I also could feel my legs for a couple of days afterwards, not quite DOMs but almost. I asked Kev about this and he said it was probably the pavement pounding, I would not usually get DOMs but then I do usually run on trails. I must bear in mind that this route had less elevation than the Linkenholt route which has 550 ft / 168 m per lap, plus my toilet in my own home is extremely convenient. I would expect a few valuable minutes to be lost walking to and from the toilet on the real event. The combination of this and the extra elevation would mean my rest times would be shorter, perhaps no time at all to use the loo on walking laps.
I had hoped that by running this mini Backyard, I would have a very clear answer by the end of it as to whether I wanted to enter the real event at Linkenholt. I actually ended up much more confused. This is a very serious challenge and in my mind there are only two reasons why someone would enter it:
They want to achieve their longest distance to date in a safe environment (no need to carry everything, an aid station and crew every 4.1 miles, no chance of getting lost).
They want to win.
I would be ticking point 2. If I enter this thing, then I want to win it. So that does leave an awful lot to think about. And if you listen to the podcast Kev recorded whilst out on the route with me, you can tell how undecided I am as to whether I should enter Linkenholt or not, so watch this space!
Lessons learned:
Keeping warm, clothing is very important, I was so glad I wrapped up warmly for the walks. On my longer breaks I covered my knees with a blanket.
Nutrition: I didn’t feel the need to eat as much on this as a normal ultra.
Rest stops: I went for a wee after every single lap! I think it was because I knew the toilet was there, but crazy really, I would never wee every hour on a normal ultra!
Running laps are surprisingly enjoyable.